escapade: n. a piece of daring or reckless behaviour. How many times have you been labelled as mad or reckless because you homeschool?
Well I say its time to break down those notions - Bring on the Madness !

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Tuesday, 31 May 2011

She's worked on popping cocktail sticks into a lid full of holes before but we progressed her to pushing them into an orange - her cries of 'I did it!' when she finished really made me smile along with her running round the room showing it to everyone :)

DD4 and DD6 also thought this was too much fun to ignore and promptly borrowed it when she had finished. DD2 also chose her bottle filling (again)

her sensory bin

which morphed into a tracing activity starting with the bird templates from the sensory bin

followed by some wooden shapes

and finally a banana?!?

next she went onto fine motor skills with her marbles and golf tees

She was very pleased when she mastered the clip purse in her opening and closing basket.

and good old rug rolling.

DD4 focused on her letter r today with some pin poking

and a letter formation practice sheet (available on my download page) - as you can see there is still work to do on holding a pencil correctly.

She then moved to some sensorial work using the mini knobless cylinders

and finished with a number line (wooden numbers from 0-9 and a basket with 45 marbles for COE)

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

DD8 was lucky today and was invited to Eden Camp (WW2 museum) with some friends so it left the other girls at home without her.

DD2 was happy enjoying some extension work with the knobless cylinders (from Montessori Print Shop)

DD4 did some work on letter formation, she started with her sandpaper letter then moved to rainbow letters - if you've not done this before you should try it as it's really effective.You start with a yellow highlighter and 'show' the child the correct formation

then it's their turn to use different coloured highlighters to trace over the letter using the correct formation - this creates a wonderful rainbow effect.

as you can see DD4 thought it was great fun and continued for a while (it was her idea to then draw each letter in its own colour so I could see what colours she used)

DD6 was doing some work on factors

but the younger girls equipment proved too much fun

she even found a use for the sandpaper letters - she started with teaching her sisters the vowels then progressed to using them to show the sign language alphabet

DD2 didn't mind sharing as she got to use the highlighters

and even got a turn on the pegboard (but after our last adventure I did count the beads after she had finished - twice!)

Thursday, 19 May 2011

DH complains that I have an online affair with Montessori Print Shop - I spend way too much time browsing (and buying) their beautiful 3 part cards : )

Yesterday they released a brand new freebie (yes - FREE) that created a wonderful extra activity for the girls today. The freebie is called Animal Camouflage and you can download it here (along with all their other freebies)

I started the activity by making them stand around a tray with their eyes closed

on the tray I had a white and pink piece of paper with pink butterfly cutouts scattered over both. They had to open their eyes for 5 seconds and answer the question - if you were a bird which patch of butterflies would you go to for lunch? - they all opted for white paper apart from DD8 who decided she would have both (greedy or what??)

Next they had to count the butterflies in each pile to see which patch held the most (the pink) and it launched nicely into a discussion about camouflage and how it benefits animals. (pointers kindly provided by Montessori Print Shop here)

Finally they all worked with the 3 part cards

They had so much fun that I went back and bought another two sets for them to use tomorrow.

Disclaimer
I haven't been asked or solicited to write this review - I am just very impressed by the product and the kindness of Montessori Print Shop in offering for free.

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

As we've decided to reorganise our schoolroom (the girls requested individual desks to prevent work getting spoilt by DD2) I 'borrowed' a display shelf from our shop. It is large and not the ideal shelf for Montessori equipment but it works for me as DD2 can't reach the top where I now store all our elementary work (including the small beads that necessitated a trip to hospital to have one surgically removed from DD2's ear)

DD2 & DD4 were the first in the schoolroom this morning and they explored for hours : )DD2 started with the knobless cylinders but didn't quiet manage to get them right

DD4 joined in with some of her own

and after a few demonstrations from her DD2 got it right (she seemed so happy)

I have no idea how this tower managed to stay upright :)

DD4 then decided it would be great to demonstrate all the PL materials to her sister - she started with whisking

carefully demonstrating it to DD2 then trying to 'help' her do it

(we gave in here and changed the cup for a bowl which made it easier for DD2 but did create more spillages)

She also tried to teach her to plait but didn't have much success.

DD2 gave in and picked up her favourite coin activity instead.

Overall they seem thrilled with the new set up. I think the shelves are still too crowded but that will change when I get the last one up (hopefully by tomorrow if I'm not too exhausted tonight)